


Barnum & Bailey

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bathing/Washing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ficlet. bathtub fic. set season 5. Inspired by Siken's "Driving Not Washing"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barnum & Bailey

**Author's Note:**

> _“But angels are pouring out of the farmland, angels are swarming_  
>  _Over the grassland,_  
>  _Angels rising from their little dens, arms swinging, wings aflutter,_  
>  _Dropping their white-hot bombs of love_  
>  _They want you to love the whole damn world but you won’t,_  
>  _You want it all narrowed down to one fleshy man in the bath,_  
>  _Who knows what to do with his body, with his hands”_  
>  **-Richard Siken, “Driving, Not Washing”**  
>   

He’s a man-but-not-a-man, a pale, red-fingertipped ghost that drifts from room to room, and sometimes sings.

Dean sits on his bed and watches him go, shedding clothes as he walks; uninhibited (what reason does he have?) he drops things everywhere, makes a mess until he unmakes it again, later; and now he is filling the bath.

     The scent of warm water – that loamy, comforting, childhood smell – is drifting out of the bathroom, following Castiel when he swings the door open, then shut again, drifting out into the bedroom and then back into the bathroom. Each time he makes the trip he is less clothed; he shrugs out of his suit-jacket (caked in mud), out of his tie, his shirt; he makes another trip and returns pantsless, Jimmy’s white, wide-banded boxer-briefs riding high on his thighs.

Dean sits on the bed, just – watching. Makes no comment on the angel, how the lines of his back move when he walks, how he hums gently to himself, (and Dean didn’t even know he  _knew_ songs, let alone the classics – Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday) – Castiel sings ‘ _Gloomy Sunday’,_ half a hum, half an absent-minded whisper, and Dean watches, and Castiel sheds his clothes.

Eventually – when another trip out of the bathroom would mean his nakedness, for there is nothing left to peel away – Dean hears the splash as he sinks into the warm water – hears him hum softly again, one of pleasure, like someone stretching out on a window-sill in the sunlight.

He sits on the edge of the bed, and his legs twitch against the floor.

In the bedroom the air seems colder; there isn’t a light on, but for the tiny bedside lamp casting a dull, orange glow on the bed, and the bathroom, by contrast,  is bright with halogen; murky with steam from the hot bath, smelling sweet. It’s white in there, and Castiel is in there, bathing and singing, softly now,  _Paper Moon,_ like he only knows how it’s supposed to sound, and hasn’t heard it with a true ear.

Dean says nothing; flushes uncomfortably, gets up from the bed to walk around a bit, carefully toeing his way past Castiel’s clothes. It is his fault, anyway, that the angel is here; that he fell asleep in the seat beside Dean on the drive up, that he can’t  _mojo_ his clothes clean anymore. That they got stuck in the rain, the car out of gas, and had to walk a mile for more, the heavy cars streaming past them, deliberately running through puddles until they were both soaked through. Castiel didn’t react much – seemed to take each insult of  _humanity_ on with a strangely complacent air, as if he’d expected the worst, and the world was simply delivering it, bit by bit. He paid Dean little heed when they reached the hotel room; went into the bathroom to run himself some water without even asking, and left Dean sitting on the bed, hands folded in his lap, eyes rapt on the slow, sexless undressing Castiel played out in front of him.

His tuneless muttering came through the door in slow, whining strands –  _but it wouldn’t be make believe –_ and horseshit like that fucking Williams play Sam liked so much, full of people shouting at each other, of blue light and balconies and Mexican flower-sellers .

_This_ is prettyWilliams in itself, he thinks darkly; him sitting here in the bedroom, alone in the cold, listening to the sounds of Castiel’s warm, naked body moving around in the tub. Something like a metaphor, though he doesn’t know what the hell for; lust, maybe. Religion. Who the fuck knows.

He wanders to the doorframe;  Castiel has left the door open, almost fully, and through it’s wide angle Dean can see him; his long legs bent up, his body beneath the water; his chest leant back against the slope of the low bath, the thin wisps of hair on his chest, on his legs, below his navel, leading into the water. His head is tipped back against the wall; flushed pink, his cheeks are stark against his dark hair, which sticks damply to his forehead, as if he’d plunged himself under the water whilst Dean was listening. He turns his head, slowly, eyes half-lidded, and blinks at Dean dully, unsurprised to see him there.

“You need anything?” Dean blurts, stupidly – a cover for  _I was looking,_ which Castiel, from the slow curl of his smile, doesn’t seem to buy.

“Come here.” He says, sleepily, and Dean hesitates.

“I’m okay.” He murmurs, and goes as if to leave, but Castiel rolls his eyes and gestures with the long, pale fingers of his hand; that universal ‘ _come here’_ gesture with his fingers, that Dean didn’t know he knew, either.

He expected him to be human-looking, naked, but instead it’s only  _more_ apparent that this is a creature  _other_ than humanity, large and winged and – if Dean is honest –  _beautiful,_ long arms to elbows, long legs to graceful knees, pale wrists like blank sheets of paper that Dean wants to use his mouth to write on. “Don’t be an idiot, Dean.” Castiel murmurs, unhurried.

He hesitates again; his fingers tighten on the edge of the doorframe, and he looks around the bathroom, anywhere but at the angel, as Castiel slowly, leisurely, bends forward up to his own knees, rummages for the sponge in the water.

He comes a little closer, slow. Castiel mutters a couple of bars of  _Let’s Fall In love_ under his breath, and looks at Dean, and smirks.

Maybe it’s the music; maybe the steam, like they’re in some sweaty blues club, forty years ago; but Dean feels like he’s in an old movie, something with Marilyn or Bette Davis - or maybe one of those stupid vintage porno playing cards, chicks with dark eyes covering their breasts as they bend over, hair as black as the ace of spades at their crotches, just like Castiel’s.

He swallows softly. Picks his way across the room,  _forces_ himself to give in to it; the way Castiel moves his hand through the water, fingertips picking paths, trailing lines. There are no bubbles; just clear water, mint-green like the plastic of the tub, and when Dean reaches him, when he stands above the bath - Castiel bent forward over his knees, squeezing the sponge over his own back, rivulets of water running over his shoulders, down the slim flare of his hips, the tiny dimples at the foot of his spine – he can see him, all of him, from knee to toe, neck to the curve of his backside, his damp hair curled, shiny with the water, at the base of his skull.

There’s something  _knowing_ about Castiel – no pretension, no artifice. He does nothing to  _seduce_ Dean; lacks the equipment, maybe – doesn’t know the nuances, the tags and patterns of _flirting –_ couldn’t bat his eyes to save his life, let alone spill a line from his lips ( _Did it hurt?_ Dean almost laughs at the joke in his head). But he looks up unflinchingly into Dean’s eyes, and sits back in the bathtub, stretching his legs out in front of him. He’s a long, leisurely spread of loose limbs; doesn’t fit in the tub entirely, legs bent up slightly, feet too big to sit flat on the base. He looks up at Dean, and tips him a smile, and hums around a sigh. He reaches an arm out and tugs – gently – on the edge of Dean’s t-shirt, and Dean spills onto the floor to meet him, knees almost giving out. He kneels by the bathtub, and he waits. Castiel’s wet fingers leave dark fingerprints on the edge of his shirt; smeared marks, like the ones in the condensation on a bathroom mirror. He rubs the shirt between forefinger and thumb, and Dean just – looks at him, drinks him in, the long, lazy spread of him, the fact that he’s  _here,_ like  _this,_ and still so  _not_ human, still so strange, so believably the creature that pulled him from hell.

“This isn’t so bad.” Castiel says, apropos of nothing, and Dean hums his agreement; leans his forearm on the bath, trails his fingers in the warm water, inches from Castiel’s hip. “I can see why you people do it.”

“Us  _people?”_ Dean chuckles softly, and Castiel looks at him, and smiles with just the corner of his mouth.

“You  _people._ Exactly.”

“Racist.”

“Suppose I’ll have to stop calling you that, eventually.” Castiel lifts his arms and puts them on the edges of the bath; his wet elbow brushes Dean’s hand, his wrist dangles off the edge of the tub, towards the water.

“Whatever. I don’t mind.”

Castiel laughs softly. “Maybe I’ll keep doing it to  _you,_ then.”

Dean laughs back. He keeps his eyes on his hand, in the water; the blood-warm swirl of it around his fingertips, its wide,  _ssh_ ing _s_ ound against the edges of the bath. Castiel lifts his hand; trails his wet fingers over Dean’s arm; leaves shining trails in his wake, flattening the hairs on Dean’s arms to his skin, reaching the base of his wrist and then leaving them there, as if taking his pulse. If he’s paying any attention, it’s  _racing;_ the bathroom too warm, his disbelief running hot under his skin. An angel, a fucking _angel,_ playing hand-games with him as he sits naked beside him; an angel, running his warm, wet fingers over the back of Dean’s hand to his knuckles, then dragging them back to his wrist.

He lifts his head, and Dean looks at him – Castiel shifts in the bath, rolls onto his side, nudges his face close. Presses his nose to the side of Dean’s own, dragging the tip over his cheek, mouth hot, and close. He makes a noise, half-sigh, half the sound he made when he got into the bath – wide as he hit the water, like pleasure, like an ache – and it touches Dean’s mouth, too. Makes his own breath hitch.

“You smell like rainwater.” Castiel murmurs, and Dean, not really listening, barely understands.

“Like-“ He stutters in reply, and his lips brush Castiel’s as he does.

“Rainwater. Mm.” He rolls in the tub, to get better purchase – pushes his legs up close to himself, lifts his hand from Dean’s wrist to push it into his hair, curve it around his ear. Their foreheads touch, brush, when he leans in closer. “I like this.” He mutters, another non-sequitur.

Dean just says, “Yeah.” Castiel’s eyes are almost closed; his gaze is dipped low, unabashedly trained on Dean’s mouth, and his palm, against the side of Dean’s face, is warm, and damp.

Castiel’s kiss – the move forward, the way he slurs his mouth against Dean’s, brushes their lips together and makes a noise, like a hum; like the single, whispered bar of another song – is heated, clings; is damp, like his body in the bath. He huffs a little sigh – a content, sleepy sound – and the water sloshes as he adjusts himself – digs his hand more firmly in Dean’s hair, mouth open and sloppy when they meet – a slip of tongue, the languid drag of his teeth, and Dean wonders where he learnt  _how-_ if there’s an instruction manual for angels on how to work the human body – how to walk, how to laugh, how to kiss. If it’s something he picked up along the way, if Dean is not the first warm dry thing he’s been pressed against; not the first thing he’s made damp.

Dean slides his hand into the bath; lets his fingers walk around the span of Castiel’s waist, dipping his fingers in and out of the water, a light, wet brush along his skin. Pushes back against Castiel’s mouth, groans when the angel tugs on his hair, when he pulls away.

For a moment, they just look at each other – Castiel, the angel in the bath, and Dean, the body out of it, the man whose hand lingers on the long, smooth curve of his stomach. Castiel eyes him, gaze tracking over his face. “You’re a mess.” He says softly, voice a little darker, a little more plush. “Water’s still warm.”

Dean doesn’t need any more telling than that.   


End file.
